Jump Start
by Caleb Nova
Summary: Two catastrophic days had almost completely disrupted Tim and Daisy's life, and then when it was all over they were back where they had started. But some changes really can be for the better, and happen in spite of comfortable stasis. Tim x Daisy
1. Stranger Daise

**Jump Start**

** Chapter One:**

**Stranger Daise**

* * *

_I'm not so indifferent – it's just a trick of the light._

_Like how blades are always possible to find,_

_in sharp words and time._

_I've spent twenty-six years with no progress to tell._

_But for you I showed I was staying – _

_and I meant it as well._

* * *

Consciousness came slowly, a gradual awakening of each individual sense as sleep receded from the daylight.

In that semi-awake state sensations are registered but not understood. There was a wet snuffling sound repeating in the background and an odd, cascading noise followed each of his ungainly movements. He was sure he wasn't in his bed, nor was he in a pose of full recline. For some reason his left arm hurt, and his neck was unusually stiff.

As the functions of his brain were slowly restored to full power, he reasoned that he must have fallen asleep in his beanbag chair. It certainly wouldn't be the first time he had done so, and it would explain his sitting position and the rustling. It did not, however, account for the stabbing pain in his left arm or the snuffling. Reluctantly, he decided that his best course of action would be to open his eyes.

Sunbeams from the window stabbed into the back of his brain as his eyelids slid apart, but he bravely pressed onward and allowed his eyes to focus. Though his vision was blurred by sleep he still managed to identify his familiar surroundings. He was, as he had correctly guessed, in his beanbag chair, slumped in front of the television. Now all he had to do was look to his left and figure out the rest of the mystery.

His neck gave a tremendous crack when he turned it to look down at his left arm, and he winced. The beanbag chair had not been kind to his body. His gaze traveled downwards and the sight that greeted them brought the events of the previous day crashing back through his mind.

In the course of forty-eight hours he had nearly lost his flat and his closest friends. It had been a near thing to snatch victory from the gaping maw of defeat, but they had done it. True, he had lost yet another girlfriend, a fact that had kept any real feeling of contentment from coming back over him, but what he _had_ gained was the sense that everything was going to work out. If that was all he had to show for the frenzied efforts of yesterday, then it was more than good enough. It was too early to say whether things were going to get even better. He'd settle for the reestablishment of the status quo.

The amount of drool Daisy was depositing on the front of his shirt hinted that they were well on their way back towards normalcy.

Carefully, he extracted his arm from behind her limp figure and bit the inside of his cheek as sensation returned to the limb in the form of stabbing pain. He flexed his fingers, trying to restore the blood flow. Daisy snorted loudly into his chest but didn't wake. He didn't begrudge anyone their sleep, but he really needed to stretch out, and change his shirt.

"Daisy," he murmured to her, gripping her shoulder and shaking her gently. "Daise."

"Wha-?" Daisy gurgled, jerking upright.

"We fell asleep in front of the telly," he told her. "Sorry to wake you, but I couldn't feel my arm."

"Oh, Tim," Daisy said, wiping her mouth. She looked around, blinking as she became fully awake. "What time is it?"

Tim looked up at the clock over Daisy's shoulder. "About eleven."

There was a moment of awkward silence as they both took stock of how different this morning was from the previous. A sudden reversal of fortune had turned back the time and left them where they had started. They met each other's eyes.

"Alright?" Tim said slowly.

"Alright," Daisy replied.

"You sleep well?"

"Fine," Daisy nodded, and then chuckled a little uncomfortably. "Had some weird dreams – thought I was back at the station for some reason, you know. Weird."

"Yeah, weird." Tim eyed her. "Any regrets?"

"Well, I'll probably miss the money," Daisy said thoughtfully, "but I'd miss living here even more. It's almost scary how much everything nearly changed, isn't it?"

"Yeah, well, not everything is the same as it was." Tim grunted as he pushed himself out of the beanbag and stood.

"Is Sophie gone, then?" Daisy asked carefully.

"She's in America by now."

"Oh." Daisy said nothing for a long few seconds before letting out a hesitant, "I'm sorry."

"It's alright." Tim shrugged dismissively, even though it wasn't that easy letting go. He walked over towards his bedroom. "I'll get over it, like I did before."

Tim pushed open the door to his bedroom and as he stepped inside heard Daisy say something that sounded like, "I hope _not_ like you did before."

Okay, he thought while he changed his clothes, so maybe he hadn't handled the breakup with Sarah as well as he might have. But he was a little older now and, with any luck, slightly wiser. Being single wasn't such a burden. He still had all of his friends, after all, and taking recent events into account, he could have been in a far worse situation.

He tried to think, 'be happy for what you have' but nearly gagged on the platitude. Some things were just too stupid to swallow. He'd accept the mellow mood he was in, and leave it at that.

When he stepped out of his room Daisy's door was closed, so he moved towards the kitchen area with the intent of finding something to eat. He popped a couple of pastries into the toaster and leaned against the countertop, waiting for them to be done. A knock at the door pulled him from his food, and he went to answer it.

Outside in the hallway Mike stood in full camouflage regalia, cradling a large assault rifle in his arms. "Morning, Tim," he greeted Tim cheerfully.

"Oh, Christ," Tim sighed, looking down at the rifle. There was one immediate explanation that popped into mind as to why Mike was in such a good mood. "Who did you shoot? Did you apologize?"

"No one today," Mike immediately reassured him. "The safety is on and the magazine is unloaded – unless I loaded it in my sleep. I could check but I don't want to wake Marsha."

"Of course. What is it?"

"This, my friend, is an Israeli Galil AR. It chambers the 7.62 standard NATO round, fires at 650 rounds per minute, has an effective range of 600 meters, and is one sweet piece."

"Fantastic. Why do you have it?"

"Well, I was feeling a bit rubbish this morning for some reason so I thought it might cheer me up."

"And did it?"

Mike squinted thoughtfully for a moment before fondling the grip of the weapon and sighing, "_Yeah_…"

"Stand it in the corner," Tim told him, moving aside to let Mike into the flat. "Have you eaten yet?"

Mike left his rifle in the corner behind the door and sat at the table. "I'm still working through those scones I baked." He looked around the flat. "Is Daisy in?"

"In her room," Tim said, indicating the closed door behind Mike. "How's Marsha?"

"She seems alright. We talked a bit, and though she would have liked the money, she likes having all of us here even more."

"That's almost exactly what Daisy said." Tim retrieved his pastries from the toaster, dropped them onto a plate, and sat down across from Mike. "So, when you gave Sophie my letter…"

"She took it pretty well. She hugged me."

Tim took a bite of his pastry. "What did you do?"

"I patted her on the back."

"Hard, or…?"

"Sort of a… soft tap, with a slight rubbing motion."

"Friendly comfort with just a hint of soothing empathy," Tim diagnosed.

"Yes, that was it."

"Well," Tim said, swallowing, "at least she probably doesn't hate me. I prefer ending on a high note, rather than what happened last time."

Mike's eyes widened slightly behind his aviator glasses. "You're not going to keep seeing her?"

"It might be a bit difficult with an ocean in the way, Mike."

"You could still have sex on the internet," Mike pointed out.

Tim shook his head. "I've been over this."

"You're not even going to write her?"

"Maybe sometimes, but not like that. Really, I've been thinking maybe it's better that we quit while we were ahead, you know, before she started sleeping with her boss."

Mike reached across the table to slap Tim across the face but his target ducked to the side and knocked his hand away. "That was a joke you moron! I'm doing my best to get over this and slapping me around isn't going to work this time!"

"I just want to help, Tim."

"I know, Mike," Tim sighed, "but this is something I have to get a handle on myself. I'm already feeling a lot better about it than I thought I was going to – so let's not chance ruining that too, alright? Maybe Daisy's Zen rubbed off on me a little, I don't know. I really think I'm going to be fine."

"It's not like you to let go so easily," Mike said suspiciously. "Not like you at all." His hand slowly began to move up underneath his jacket.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Tim rolled his eyes. "I'm _me_, you twat! When we were nine I accidentally shot you in the leg with an air rifle and you gave yourself a medal for bravery under fire. Satisfied?"

Mike's hand receded and he gave Tim a look of apology. "Sorry, Tim. Can't be too careful."

"Next you'll be seeing black helicopters again," Tim shook his head a second time, then returned to the original subject. "Maybe I'm turning over a new leaf."

"More likely you're just in delayed shock over another speedy breakup and you've yet to come to terms with it."

"Am I missing something here?" Tim half-shouted. "What exactly is your interest in this? You never liked it when I spent time with Sophie, you never liked _her_, and you threatened to kill her if she left me, which she did! Now she's gone and by all rights you should be ecstatic."

Mike frowned slightly. "You think I'm that petty?"

"You were petty enough not to like her." Tim glared at Mike.

"It wasn't so much not liking her as not liking _you_ when you were around her," Mike said heavily, and pointed towards his Sergeant's chevrons.

"I said I was sorry," Tim said, his anger fading in the face of Mike's obvious hurt.

"It wouldn't have been so bad except you just fancied her. That made it worse, you know, to be second best to a new recruit in your life, one you didn't even love."

"It was a lot of fun, yeah… But I wasn't out trying to find anything else. I never meant to forget about you, or Daisy. I _liked_ having a girlfriend again," Tim admitted. He made a dismissive hand gesture. "Look – Sophie's gone, and there's nothing I can do about it. You can't change the past, what's done is done, uh, ashes to ashes, whatever. Let's just move on, okay?"

"That's the spirit, Tim!" Mike said bracingly, and leaned across the table to give Tim a solid clap on the shoulder. "Stiff upper lip, eyes towards the front! A soldier must endure hardships without sacrificing his forward momentum."

"You've gotten over your rabbit then?"

"Of course," Mike told Tim, but blinked a little too rapidly when he said it.

"Moving on," Tim said, downing the last of his pastry, "you got work today?"

"Nope. You?"

"I have absolutely nothing to do."

Mike tugged at one end of his moustache thoughtfully. "Was there something you had in mind?"

"Nothing in particular… Just that we're both off work, I'm single again, we've just been to the edge of Hell and back in two days, and now I have every intention of sitting back down on that beanbag until my bladder forces me to move," Tim declared. "And I was wondering if you were going to be around to share in my indolence."

"Sounds like a plan of action," Mike said agreeably. He stood from his seat and retrieved his rifle from the corner. "Let me take this old girl upstairs and I'll come back down with something more suitable for sitting."

Tim didn't contradict his firearm-obsessed friend – Mike simply wasn't comfortable without a gun or guns on his person and Tim had accepted that a long time ago. "A plan of _in_action, anyway," Tim chuckled, standing and crossing the room to sit heavily on the couch. "We'll collapse in the beanbag with the Playstation and rock the Tony Hawk 2, after which in the evening we'll go down to the pub for some pints, and then stagger back here to rock the Tony Hawk 2 while pissed out of our heads."

"I like the way you think," Mike called back to Tim from the hallway. "Back in a minute."

It _was_ a good plan, Tim silently agreed as he slouched lower on the sofa. He couldn't think of anything he wanted to do, so it was the perfect sort of day for doing nothing at all. He leaned his head back on the cushion behind him and tried to clear his mind of any and all productive thoughts.

Around the corner of the room he could hear Daisy's door open, and her footsteps came closer as she entered the kitchen area. "Was that Mike I just heard?" she asked, opening the refrigerator and peering inside.

"Yeah, he's just gone upstairs to change his guns," Tim said, closing his eyes.

"Oh." There was some rattling as Daisy moved several bottles around. "Are we out of juice?"

"Yes, but there's plenty of mayonnaise."

"Blech. Not really what I look for in a breakfast." Daisy sighed and sat down at the table. "I suppose we should go to the shop."

"We?"

"What do you mean, '_we_'? You think because I'm the woman it's my job to go for food?" Daisy questioned him indignantly, her voice rising. "Well let me tell you something, Tim Bisley – just because I happen to have tits does not make it my designated role to be your personal grocer!"

"Yeah, I know, but I already had plans," Tim replied, eyes still closed.

"Really? Anything fun?" Daisy asked curiously, her outburst quickly forgotten.

"_I_ think so. Mike and I are going to play videogames all day, get drunk in the evening, and then play videogames while drunk."

"I hardly think that counts as _plans_, Tim," Daisy said heatedly. "I am _not_ going to be stuck shopping by myself because you wanted to play games for twenty-four hours."

"Daisy, look," Tim said in annoyance, opening his eyes and sitting up straight. "After all that's happened recently I don't think it's too much to ask that we get a break, alright? I just want to relax for today. I don't want to go out. And besides, do you _really_ want to get dressed and go buy anything? You'd have to find your shoes first."

"Oh, fuck it," Daisy grumbled, standing and striding back towards her room. "I'll just try to write something."

"We already got the house and Marsha back – I doubt we can expect any more miracles this week," Tim muttered snidely.

"I'm doing better, you know, I really am," Daisy told him sincerely. "I've been feeling very prolific, very inspired and dramatic! I've got a stories tell, Tim. So much has happened lately that I'm just brimming with concepts, and ideas, and, and_ visions_!"

Tim closed his eyes again and lay his head back down. "Well good, great – don't waste them on me then."

"Anything that doesn't involve guns, the FBI, or mutants bears would be wasted on _you_, Tim," Daisy retorted.

"Catching on then, are you?"

Daisy huffed at that but didn't respond, instead running her fingers gently over the keys of her typewriter as if gaining insight by osmosis. "Right," she muttered to herself. "Vision. Depth. Scope. This is _art_."

She hesitantly reached down to tap her first letter when Mike came barging back in through the doorway, startling her and resulting in her entire palm being mashed against the keys.

"I couldn't find my .50 Deagle," Mike explained to Tim as he walked in, "so I grabbed the 1911. It should do in a pinch."

"Shit!" Daisy cursed.

"It's not so bad, Daisy," Mike comforted her. "The 1911 still has plenty of stopping power."

"Better leave her alone, Mike," Tim advised him. "She's summoning up a literary masterpiece. Grab a controller and let's grind some rails."

"Just keep it down, please," Daisy told them as she removed her now ruined sheet of paper and replaced it with a new one. "I need to be able to concentrate."

"Alright," Tim and Mike said together in a monotone.

"And don't yell when you win either, I don't want to be startled."

"Alright."

"And don't press the buttons too hard, or they make that noise-"

"_Alright,_" Tim said loudly, turning to look at her. "Now are you actually going to write something or is this research for your pièce de résistance, _How to Drive Your Flatmate Spare_?"

"Look, I'm writing," Daisy replied brusquely, tapping noisily at her keys. "See?"

"Yes, great." Tim sank back into his beanbag and reverted his attention to the game.

Tim shook his head as Daisy continued to bang on her typewriter with more force than was necessary. It was the little conflicts like this, though, that he had to put up with because it was always worth it in the end. He liked (loved?) the flat that had become his true home, and he liked (loved?) living with Daisy in the same way that he liked (…_loved_?) her. Even these sorts of fights were a part of what he had narrowly prevented from being lost forever.

He tried to keep that in mind as he relaxed further into his beanbag and focused on the game.

* * *

Daisy lowered her head into her hands and tried to stop herself from screaming in frustration.

The bare paper mocked her with its emptiness. Her attempts to fill it had amounted to a few half-hearted words that didn't seem to relate to anything. It wasn't even so much that she couldn't find the prose to put down, but rather that her mind was as blank as the paper. There was a depressing lack of pressure in the back of her consciousness. It was like she was manifesting some lingering form of Zen exactly when she needed it the least. This wasn't writers block – there was nothing to be blocked.

In a manic fit she grabbed the sides of her typewriter and squeezed as hard as she could, like she could juice some fiction out of the machine, but all she got for her trouble were sore hands. Taking a depth breath, she gingerly laid her fingers back onto the keys.

She tried to force out something creative – a brief story, an editorial column, a short poem, a couplet, a dirty limerick, _anything_. Her fingers stubbornly remained at rest. An aborted scream still hung in the back of her throat, but she allowed herself a piteous moan and slumped forward onto the typewriter, pillowing her face in her arms. It just wasn't fair. She _knew_ she was a good writer. All she needed was some inspiration… Or possibly some sympathy.

Daisy opened one eyelid and peeked over her arms, but Tim remained oblivious despite her performance.

That bastard! Here she was in literary purgatory, in artistic _agony_, and he had the unmitigated gall to ignore her. Just because he could draw pictures on demand didn't mean everyone had that kind of commercialistic proclivity. She was an artiste, with a fancy E on the end, not some best-selling purveyor of mainstream, demographically targeted rubbish! Her work might not come easily, but it had _meaning_.

None of these confidence-bolstering thoughts were helping. The paper remained pristine, free of any ink or brilliance.

"You see that?" Tim crowed to Mike. "That right that there is the sublime skill that brings home the gold medal every time, mate."

Daisy eagerly raised her head. Tim had provided her with the perfect distraction. "Tim," she said reprovingly. "I'm really trying to work!"

"Looked to me like you were trying to sleep," Tim replied, unaffected by her remonstrance.

"Is that what you think I'm doing? Sleeping?" Daisy questioned him stridently. "I _told _you I was going to be trying to write this morning!"

"_Trying_ being the operative word."

"Tim!"

"We're not being loud, Daisy – what more do you want?"

"I just want to be able to concentrate without any distractions," she said in what she thought was a reasonable tone of voice.

"And we said we'd keep it down, alright? If it bothers you that much why don't you go write in your room?"

"I shouldn't _have_ to leave!" Daisy said stubbornly. "This is just as much my room as yours!"

"Yeah, and I never said it wasn't!" Tim paused his game and turned to look at Daisy askance. "What is this all about?"

"Nothing," Daisy told him unconvincingly. "I'm just trying to work."

"If you're so set on working then why are you having a go at me for no reason?"

"I'm not having a go at you-"

"Yes, you are!" Tim contradicted her. "I said one thing to Mike and you're all over me!"

"I am not!" Daisy insisted. "I just don't think it's too much to ask to be able to focus on _my_ work in _my own _home!"

"_I never said otherwise_. All I did was suggest you write in your room and you're making a scene like I was trying to chuck you out!"

"Oh, that's easy for you to say! You're the one who _wanted _to move out," Daisy accused him.

Tim dropped his controller and stared at her. "Daisy, what the fuck does that have to do with anything?"

She wasn't sure, but it felt important. A slew of feelings were bubbling up from dormancy. "Well that's just it, isn't it? You always, always making fun of my writing, never wanting to spend time with me, ignoring me about Sarah, ignoring me for Sophie – you don't want to live with me! You never have!"

Every unrelated fear and pent up accusation had tumbled out of her without rhyme or reason. Mike averted his gaze from the pair of them uncomfortably while Tim still stared at her, aghast.

"What are you-, for fuck's sa-, I can't even- _bleh_-," Tim started and aborted at least four sentences as he struggled to answer her wild charges. "Daisy, what the bloody hell are you on about?!"

"I've _always_ been second best for you, Tim-"

"That is not true!"

"-All you've ever cared about is the flat-"

"What?! What about all the good times?"

"-Which you _used _me to get-"

"_IT WAS YOUR IDEA!_" Tim shouted at her in incredulous anger.

"I should go," Mike mumbled, standing quickly and moving towards the door.

"What? Mike, no," Tim protested. "What about our game? You're our friend, it's alright if you hear this-"

"I'm sure I'll still be able to hear you upstairs," Mike said, and disappeared into the hall, shutting the door behind him.

Tim rounded on Daisy as soon as Mike had gone. "Oh, thanks, Daisy," he said sarcastically. "I don't suppose you want to take his place?"

Daisy burst into tears.


	2. Meeting Halfway

**Jump Start**

**Chapter Two:**

**Meeting Halfway**

* * *

_Besides my problems taking strides,_

_it's only slight catastrophes._

_Number all the outcomes,_

_and find out which ones are closest to me._

_I said it might all be right,_

_right? Then can we begin?_

_I said it's probably all fine,_

_but you know me – _

_I'm unconvincing again._

* * *

To Tim's utter horror, Daisy burst into tears. 

"Woah there, pickle," he stammered. "I didn't mean to shout so loud, just, just calm down, take a deep breath-"

"It's not that," Daisy sobbed, "I just can't do it!"

"Do it? Do what?"

"I can't write! I'm rubbish! I sit here and I sit here and all I do is fall asleep and eat half my weight in fucking jaffa cakes!" she howled, allowing her head to fall face first onto the keys of the typewriter. "_Why can't I write anything_?"

Tim paused to rearrange his thought processes to cope with Daisy's rapid change of subject. "Well, you… you haven't found the right inspiration, that's all. You're not motivated properly."

Daisy raised her head, a rivulet of drool coursing its way down her chin. "What do you mean?"

Tim stood from his beanbag chair and crossed the room to sit down next to Daisy at the table. "I mean, a lot of great artists draw on strong feelings to inspire themselves – sort of like what Brian does, you know? You can't expect to create something that will make other people feel things if you're not feeling those things yourself."

"Like your drawings of Sarah?"

Tim sat straight up from his slouched position. "Who told you about those?"

"Oh, I've seen you draw them around the house, you know, here and there," Daisy said evasively. "But is that what you mean?"

Tim frowned at her for a moment, but didn't pursue it. He hadn't exactly put much effort into hiding his drawings. "Yeah, sort of."

Clenching her fists, Daisy screwed her face up fiercely for a moment before it fell again. "It's no good. I'm just not as angry at Richard as you were at Sarah."

"Anger isn't the only emotion, Daisy," Tim pointed out sarcastically. "There's sadness, happiness, uh… Sappiness…

"But I'm not feeling any of those things, all I'm feeling right now is frustration and obviously that doesn't inspire me because if it did then I'd be able to write something!" Daisy lamented, and lay her head back on the typewriter.

"Then think of something else. Think of something that makes you feel a different way."

"I can't, I'm too frustrated," she groaned into the keys.

"Well what about the flat? We've had a lot of fun here, this house makes you happy. Why don't you write about that?" Tim asked.

"I'm in the flat right now, Tim, and do I look happy?" Daisy's head shot back up so that she could glare at him.

"Yes?" Tim ventured. When Daisy's face darkened further he sighed and continued, "Alright, no. But it's not like you're making much of an effort." Daisy's preoccupation with dramatics was one of the more tiring aspects of life on Meteor Street.

Daisy looked at him for a long instant before taking a deep breath and sitting back in her chair, squaring her shoulders. "Okay – you're right. You're right! I need to get out there and have a good time. We were losing the house, my birthday dinner was a fucking _nightmare_, Sophie left you – oh, sorry for bringing that up – very depressing, all of it. You're totally right."

He was? How often had Tim heard those words coming from Daisy's mouth? Something had to be up. "Right…" he said slowly, waiting for the punchline.

It arrived shortly thereafter. "I'll go find my shoes," Daisy told him decisively as she stood.

"What? What you want your shoes for?" Tim asked her in bafflement.

"Because I'll need them when we go out," she stated, like it was completely obvious.

"_We_?"

"Not _that_ again, Tim," Daisy said tiredly. She went into her room and began rummaging amongst the piles of clothes within.

"No, I mean it – what are you talking about?" Tim demanded.

"You said I needed to have fun, to inspire myself. So we're going out." Daisy's voice came muffled from the back of her bedroom. "It was your idea."

Tim took immediate exception to that. "It was _not_ my idea! I clearly said that I was going to stay in today!"

"It was too, you were just saying how we needed to get out and have fun, be inspired…" Daisy's head stuck out her doorway and she held forth a yellow shirt for his perusal. "This look alright?"

He shrugged angrily. "Doesn't matter to me, since I'm not going," he told her as he strode quickly across the room and collapsed back in the beanbag chair. He really couldn't believe her sometimes. He wasn't going anywhere – he'd already made _plans_.

"Tim…" she started to whine.

"Was there something you didn't understand when I outlined my day for you earlier?" Tim shook his head and picked his controller back up, determinedly fixing his gaze on the television screen.

Daisy must have gauged his obstinate mood and changed tactics accordingly, because she instantly went from pleading to confrontational. "You see? I _knew _it! I _am_ always second best for you!"

He gritted his teeth and swallowed his immediate response, stubbornly ignoring her.

"It's always the same thing! Always! You don't want to go out with me, and then when you do you always want to do things _your_ way!" Daisy huffed. "You told me to go out and be inspired, and _friends_ are supposed to go out together, and now you're just sitting there like, like a _lump_, when I really want to spend time with you!"

"Daisy, what is your problem? Seriously!" Tim broke his short self-imposed muteness, unable to endure for the duration. "Why is this such a big deal?" He turned to look at her.

Under his scrutinizing Daisy fell silent, not meeting his eyes. "I just want you to have fun with me," she answered lamely. "Nobody wants to go out by themselves."

All Tim had wanted was to have a nice, relaxing day in the flat with his two best mates. Things had been going well enough until just recently, when Daisy's writing frustrations had interfered. But he was used to that – she threw fits about her writing all the time. This seemed to be a more serious argument, though. Instead of the normal conflicts something deeper had risen to the surface between himself and Daisy, and he didn't know why, what the problem was, or how to fix it.

He did know, however, that he needed to try.

"Okay," he said, reluctantly surrendering. "Fine, we'll go out, and we'll do what you want to do. We did it my way last time so it's only fair."

"Really?" Daisy said, perking up. "You will?"

"Yes," Tim sighed, "I will. Just give me a minute to get ready."

Like a thunderstorm giving way to the sun, Daisy's anger evaporated and she smiled at him. Doing a giddy little jump, she rushed into her room for a change of clothes and then went into the loo to shower.

Tim stood where he was for a moment and rubbed the back of his neck, primarily feeling a great deal of apprehension. He knew he wasn't all that great at the emotional side of relationships, but he had come so close to losing Daisy in the last couple days that he wasn't willing to risk anything. If there was a problem, and there did seem to be, they would just have to talk it out like the adults they (supposedly) were. It was a tough stance and in direct contrast to his usual methods of willful denial and belligerence, but Daisy was, well… _precious_ to him, as sickening as that word was. He resolved never to use it again.

A knock at the door thankfully pulled him from his soppy soliloquy, and he walked over to answer it. The view out into the hallway revealed the smoke-wreathed visage of Marsha, who was looking surprisingly sober for one o'clock in the afternoon.

"Morning, Marsha," Tim greeted her, fixing a smile on his face that he was sure looked like more of a grimace. He was genuinely fond of Marsha, but at this particular moment in time he wasn't feeling very open to her meddling.

"Is everything alright?" Marsha asked him perfunctorily, peering around him as best she could into the flat. "I heard you two were having a row."

"Oh. You heard that from Mike?"

"No, the floorboards." Marsha brushed past Tim and let herself in, settling into a chair at the table. "I hope it wasn't serious?"

"Ah, no, no. I think we've worked it out," Tim told her, trying to smooth things over.

"Well, good. It won't kill you to take her out every now and then, you know."

Tim supposed he shouldn't be surprised that Marsha was aware of the details. "We do go out sometimes, Marsha, but it's not like I have to _take_ her out. We're not… _together_, after all."

"Yeah, I know that – _now_, anyway," Marsha said with a hint of rancor. "Doesn't change how she feels though, does it?"

"N-" He opened his mouth and took a breath to respond, and then realized he had no idea what she meant by that. He tried again. "Uh, I don't follow."

"I should think you ought to by now," Marsha scoffed at him. "I've already said it to you once, and it's not my place to say it again."

"Say _what_?"

"The answer to what you didn't follow." Marsha eyed him knowingly. "Think about it, and maybe you'll remember and come around."

Something she had already said about how not taking Daisy out didn't change Daisy's feelings? Tim blinked, totally confused. When had he and Marsha ever talked about going out, in any capacity? Never, as far as he could remember.

Marsha was still looking at him and he realized he should probably respond. He attempted to change the subject. "Yeah, well, thanks for the advice. Um, I'd offer you some tea, but I sort of need to get ready to go…"

"You really don't get it, do you?" Marsha sighed, shaking her head at him. "I was hoping after Sally chucked you-"

"-Sophie," Tim interrupted. "And she didn't chuck me, she had a job offer." It was a very important distinction.

"Oh, right," Marsha said dismissively, clearly disinterested in anything to do with Sophie and her departure. "Anyway, I'll pop in to see you two later then – wouldn't want to cause a delay. Tell Daisy I said hello."

"I will, yes," Tim told her, doing his best to restrain himself from hurrying her towards the door.

"Bye-bye," Marsha said as she sashayed out into the hall.

"Bye!" Tim responded with as much cheer as he could muster.

As soon as the door was shut he breathed a sigh of relief. He could worry about what Marsha wanted from him later – right now, he needed to get changed into something more appropriate for a day out.

* * *

It had been a strange morning in more than one way, but after tears and tantrums and unbearable frustrations, Daisy had got what she wanted. Sort of. 

That wasn't to say that getting Tim out of the house with her wasn't a desirable goal, but rather that it hadn't even been an objective until he had given her advice about finding inspiration. His original idea had been for her to become inspired within the confines of the house, but she wasn't having any of that. She wanted to go out, and she wanted him to go with her. She'd experienced little enough of that when Sophie was around.

Her anger with herself for being unable to write had been released upon Tim when he had presented himself as a target, and then was just as quickly shunted aside for a greater opportunity. Daisy might have been happy enough to stay in and write (if she was able), but Tim's words about fun and motivation had set her to thinking. Insecurities could be a powerful thing, and in this case they had driven Daisy to give Tim a test.

And that was, after all, what this was all about – testing him.

In retrospect Daisy could see that her antipathy towards Sophie had been caused not by any personality conflict, but rather that with Sophie in Tim's life, he was often out of Daisy's. More than a year's worth of close friendship had meant more to Daisy than she had realized, and as soon as Tim began to fall behind on his end of it jealousy hadn't taken long to kick in. Tim might not have been her boyfriend but he was just as much, if not more, hers as anyone else's. So it had hurt when that had seemed to mean progressively less and less to Tim as Sophie monopolized his time and energy.

But now Sophie was gone, bringing the ongoing test into the picture. She was no longer around to interrupt Daisy's life with Tim, ergo Tim should be more than happy to spend time with Daisy. It was very simple – at least in her own head. Putting that theory into practice had been a spur of the moment decision, and hadn't manifested the results that she had been looking for.

Sure, Tim _said_ that he didn't want to go because of his so-called "plans" with Mike, but Daisy knew the real score. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it seemed like the distance that had grown in proportion to Tim's involvement with Sophie was still in effect.

Still, he _had_ appeared genuinely bewildered by her accusations. Maybe that was reason for hope? Even more encouraging was his eventual acquiescence. Uncharacteristically for him, during the fight he had emerged from his protective shell of stubborn antagonism to consider her feelings. That in itself counted as a minor miracle.

With a little luck, they would have a lot of fun while they were out, and Tim would remember the way things ought to be and go back to his old self. He probably still wouldn't want to go out very often, but at least when he did it would be with her.

Humming a hopeful little tune, Daisy turned off the water in the shower and dried herself. Stepping out the stall, she put on the outfit she had chosen, including the yellow shirt she had never gotten Tim's opinion on.

After slipping slightly on the misted floor and banging her knee against the doorframe ("Shit!"), Daisy made it out of the toilet without any further mishaps. Tim's door was closed, so presumably he was getting ready to go. At least, that'd better be what he was doing.

Initially, Daisy had been intent on a raucous, barhopping night around town. Now though her enthusiasm had calmed somewhat and she was giving serious thought to the virtues of relaxing at the local pub with her best mate. She was, after all, twenty-six years old now – maybe she should try to be more mature, and settle for a quiet evening with a pint and some crisps, rather than getting completely smashed. Of course, that would have to wait. It was only just past noon, and hardly the time of day to be spent in a dark pub. Perhaps Tim would be amenable to spending some time with her and Colin in the park? He could even bring his skateboard if he wanted.

Daisy was about to go do one last check of herself in front of her mirror when there was a knock at the door. She frowned. She could have sworn she had heard Tim talking to Marsha not too long ago – now who was it?

It turned out to be Brian, standing in the hall with his arms tightly crossed. "Oh, hi Bri!" Daisy greeted him. "How are you today?"

"Fine," he answered shortly, though not unkindly. "I was wondering if you had any cloth I could borrow?"

"Have you run out of canvas?" she asked him.

"No, I've cut myself, actually." Brian uncrossed his arms and held out his bloodstained left hand.

Daisy looked down at it, scrunching up her nose in disgust. "You're not dripping, are you?"

"It's all run down my arm."

"Over here, then." Daisy led Brian to the sink and handed him a clean dishtowel from a cabinet underneath the counter. "Better hold over. I thought you stopped painting with blood ever since you had to have that transfusion?"

"I did," he assured her, gingerly wrapping his hand with the towel. "Just had a spot of trouble with some scissors."

"Well I hope it's not serious because we're not going to be around tonight if you pass out, so you might want to tell Marsha you've hurt yourself."

"You're going somewhere?"

"Tim and I are going out today," Daisy happily confirmed. "Sort of a _bonding_ thing, you know, flatmates out for a night of fun and excitement together, especially fun, even if it's not particularly exciting, since we've been most places already and all, but still lots of fun."

"Sounds… fun."

"Yes, I think so. How about you, Brian, what are you up to tonight?"

"I have an installation to plan. I'd like to base it around that banner I painted for Marsha – a moment of desperate, torturous honesty, forever frozen on a white sheet…"

"Well good, good," Daisy said after a few blank seconds. "I'm sure you'll do great!"

"Thanks."

Both of them turned to look when Tim's bedroom door opened. "How do I look?" Tim asked Daisy, walking over to stand in front of her. Before she could answer he noticed Brian at the sink with the towel still wrapped around his hand. "Oh, hey Brian. What'd you do to your hand?"

"Cut it."

"Bad?"

"No, it's alright."

"I thought you stopped painting with blood ever since you had that-"

"He did, it was scissors," Daisy interrupted Tim, looking over his clothes. "You look good, fine – is that the same blue shirt that you…" she trailed off.

Tim raised his hands in a puzzled gesture. "That I what?"

"…Wore for Sophie?"

Tim regarded her silently for a long moment. "I'll change it," he said finally, making no other comment.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow, then," Brian said following another moment of silence after Tim had left the room. "Can I bring the towel back later?"

"Yes, that's fine," Daisy told him. "Whenever you're done with it."

"I will. Good-bye," Brian said as he left, awkwardly closing the door behind him with his elbow as both hands were occupied with the makeshift bandage.

"Bye," Daisy said distractedly. Her mind was already reoccupied with plans for the evening.

Tim reemerged from his bedroom wearing a red shirt that wasn't as nice as his blue one but that Daisy liked much better anyway. "Is there anyone we haven't had over today?" Tim asked rhetorically, straightening out his collar. "Seems like all we've done is answer the door."

"Tyres has yet to show himself," Daisy shrugged.

There was a knock at the front door.

Daisy and Tim looked at each other. "Well what the fu-" Tim strode over and yanked open the door.

It was Mike. "'Lo, Tim."

* * *

"Mike," Tim said in surprise. "I didn't think you were coming back." 

Seeing Mike was something of a relief compared to the thought of seeing Tyres, who no doubt would have had some sort of plan for the evening involving loud music and dancing. Both of those things had their time and place, but now all Tim wanted was a quiet night out so he could talk to Daisy.

"Marsha said you two had worked it out. I hadn't heard any shouting for awhile, anyway. Is the game still paused?"

"Yeah, about that-" Tim began, "we're actually going out now, sorry. It was her idea," he added.

"Out clubbing?" Mike asked, his eyebrows rising hopefully.

"No, just a pub sort of thing." Tim leaned in closer to Mike, lowering his voice. "Just the two of us, get it? I think I need to talk to her."

Mike nodded slowly, understanding. "Right you are sir," he whispered back, winking at Tim. "You'll win her back, Tim-Tim, whatever was said before."

"Thanks mate."

"You two have fun then," Mike said more loudly, taking a step back. "I'll see you tomorrow if I don't see you tonight."

"Bye, Mike!" Daisy called to him.

"So long," he returned the farewell. Saluting Tim, he turned and went back up the stairs.

Tim closed the door and turned back towards Daisy, letting out a large breath and clapping his hands together. "So. What's the plan, then?"

"Well it's not really time to head out to the pub, is it?" Daisy noted. "How about we go out to the park for a bit of a stroll? We could take Colin with us."

Tim's shoulders slumped. "Daisy, tell me I did not just get dressed up so I could take Colin to the park."

"You got dressed up for _later_, and we're taking Colin for a walk _now_."

A brief internal struggle followed in which Tim ruthlessly suppressed his kneejerk reaction of arguing the point. It hurt, but he realized that he was just going to have to make some sacrifices if he was going to fix things with Daisy for good. Well… _this_ thing, anyway. He was sure they would find something else to fight about in the future.

"Does he even need to go out?" Tim asked, making one half-hearted attempt to avoid the walk. "He's got that little door of his out back."

"But we were going to spend time together," Daisy said plaintively, "and Colin's one of the family too."

"Yeah, alright," Tim grumbled, surrendering. "Get his lead then."

Daisy eagerly stood and started to gather up both Colin and his leash. Tim stood idly by and hoped, however unrealistically, that instead of blathering on about the dog Daisy would talk about exactly what it was that was bothering her so much.

The really worrying thing being that he wasn't at all sure he would have any solutions when she did.


	3. A Walk in the Park

**Jump Start**

**Chapter Three:**

**A Walk in the Park**

* * *

_Is it any wonder,_

_that we could spend this day,_

_in subtle byplay?_

_Is it so impossible,_

_to find the truth that we set,_

_and never forget?_

* * *

It truly was a beautiful day outside.

The park stretched out before them, green under the midday sun as the shades of trees danced across the ground in the rustling wind. The sky was an inverted sea of bright blue, flecked with white clouds like foam in the surf. A cooling breeze rippled over the top of the lawn, stirring up loose leaves and dandelion tufts. It was a day for verdant things to grow. It was a day to take a deep breath of fresh, grass scented air, and let it shimmer down your spine to put a little more spring in your step.

All of this made Tim regret his decision to go to the park a little less. Taking Colin for a walk had never ranked high on his list of pastimes, but it was such a pleasant sort of afternoon that it was difficult to stay surly.

Daisy ran ahead of him, chasing Colin around and throwing a stick for him to fetch. Tim had to admit that in retrospect, getting a dog really had been good for them. In a strange, almost insidious sort of way it had brought Daisy and him closer together. He had certainly never expected that, though he suspected that she had hoped it would happen. She had always very much been an advocate of _togetherness_ at the flat on Meteor Street. It had just taken him a little longer to buy into it.

These thoughts led him back to his reasons for being in the park in the first place – fixing things with Daisy.

Tim decided he would just have to go for it – like jumping into a swimming pool instead of inching in one agonizing millimeter at a time. Either way, it would most likely be painful. With his past record of relationships, he generally associated any sort of heart to heart with learning things he really, _really _hadn't wanted to hear, quickly followed by a painful separation.

He stopped walking for a moment and steadied himself, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. From a distance he watched as Daisy rolled about in the grass with Colin, wrestling for possession of a recently tossed stick. He shook his head at himself – obviously his emotional paranoia ran deep. This was _Daisy_ he was thinking about. He needed to get a handle on himself and stop acting like he was approaching another cheating girlfriend. Whatever her problem was, they'd sort it out like they always did – like best mates.

Well, like best mates who were of the opposite sex. If it had been Mike he was dealing with, they would have just slapped each other around a bit and that would have been the end of it.

Observing Daisy as she happily hurled the stick for Colin to retrieve again, Tim felt a pang of yearning for the simplicities of male bonding.

"Tim!" Daisy called to him. "Catch!"

He snapped out of his reverie just in time to catch the stick, which turned out to be unpleasantly covered in warm dog slobber. "Yeah, thanks," he muttered, hating the sensation but unwilling to wipe his hand on any of his clothing. Since Tim now possessed the precious stick, Colin was sprinting towards him on stubby legs. Tim threw it back towards Daisy and the dog did a quick hundred and eighty degree turn to follow its flight path.

"Did you want to skate?" Daisy asked, approaching Tim while Colin gnawed on his catch. "Because that's okay if you do, I could play with Colin for a bit longer. There were some boys skating over that way, maybe you could join them?"

And possibly humiliate himself in front of another gawking gaggle of kids? He'd rather not, and besides, he wasn't here to skate. "No, I'm alright."

"You sure? It's totally okay if you want to go, I mean it."

"I'm _fine_," Tim said more harshly than he had intended, and then bit the inside of his cheek in self-directed frustration. The last thing he needed was to alienate her now.

"Alright… I was just asking," Daisy said mildly, backing slightly away from him.

Tim rubbed the back of his head, trying to think of some way to get the conversation moving in the right direction. A change of subject was probably the best way to start. "So, where did you want to go tonight?"

"Well, at first I had sort of wanted to go pub hopping," Daisy mused, crouching down to pet a panting Colin when he ran back over to her, "but then I thought a quieter night would be good, you know, we could have a pint and some crisps, kick back and relax for awhile."

"If that's what you want."

Daisy raised her eyebrows in obvious amusement. "Are you feeling alright? Shouldn't you be trying to make me flip a coin?"

"No! This was your idea, remember, I didn't even want to go out…" Tim said a little sullenly.

"Well we're having fun now, aren't we?" Daisy stood and playfully hit him on the shoulder. Tim winced and leaned sideways with the blow. "It's such a nice day out we shouldn't have stayed inside anyway. Isn't that right, Colin? Isn't it? It's such a nice day out today…" Daisy said in her cutesy dog voice, putting her face down close to Colin's.

"I just thought you were all set for a big night of excitement, that's all." Tim shrugged.

"Excitement isn't the only emotion, Tim," she said, rolling her eyes. "And I mean, fun is fun, right? I should be inspired either way."

They could only hope. "Alright, sounds good to me," Tim acquiesced.

"Good!"

Tim shifted his feet nervously. The conversation was progressing fairly well, but he still hadn't come close to any of the important topics. More to the point, he was still afraid to. If it could be said there was any one thing he really hated about women in general, this was it. The question, 'Is something wrong?' always seemed to trigger some kind of inexplicable emotional proximity mine.

"Tim?"

"Huh?" Tim snapped out of his stupor, looking up at Daisy.

"Do you want to go sit in the shade?" she queried him. "I just asked you that."

"Sorry, I sort of spaced out." He looked over her shoulder and spotted a nearby bench beneath the waving branches of a large tree. "Yeah, alright."

The bench felt cool against the back of his legs as he seated himself upon it, the wooden slats bending slightly beneath his weight. Daisy sat next to him, watching Colin wiggle happily in the grass with his stick.

This was it – his opportunity. Tim slowly opened his mouth to force out some kind of opening question.

"Do you feel like things are different, now?" Daisy suddenly asked, beating him to the punch.

"How so?" Tim responded carefully, wondering (and not for the first time) why every conversation he'd had with Daisy lately had left him feeling lost.

"I don't know," Daisy said vaguely. "They just are." She looked at him, face scrunched up against the bright sun. "You know what I mean?"

"Well when you're that specific, how could I not."

Daisy rolled her eyes, turning her head away from him dismissively. "Oh, nevermind. It was just a thought I had."

Tim knew he needed to follow up on this thought, even though he had no idea where it was going. It could be his ticket into the conversation he had been trying to start in the first place. "No, how do you think things are different?"

"They just _are_…" Daisy shook her head, leaning down to pluck a few blades of grass and then twirling them in her fingers as she pondered. "It's like we've started over, almost. Everything's gone back to the way it was. It's like there's a reset button, somewhere, that got pressed and now we're fine again, me and you."

They were fine? Then why had Daisy been flipping out earlier? "I guess."

Small lines creased Daisy's forehead as a ghost of a frown crossed her face. "You guess? You don't think we're alright?"

Tim took the plunge. "Well you were yelling at me earlier."

"I was frustrated with my _writing_," Daisy said dismissively, like it hadn't been a big deal at the time. "This was a good idea you had, going out. I feel much better now."

Tim clenched his jaw and bit back his first response, that being to point out it hadn't really been his idea at all. He had to be constructive, for once. "Good, I'm glad." He bravely pressed forward, continuing, "It just seemed to me like you were mad about more than the writing."

Daisy gave him the strangest look of… _approval_? What the hell? "I admit I was a bit narky," she said, answering him without actually addressing the issue.

Tim had an odd detached feeling, like he was being quizzed. It was as if even though he had control of the conversation, Daisy was steering him. "Yeah, I just wasn't sure why. Me and Mike stay in and play games all the time and it's never a problem."

"I know, I know," Daisy sighed, "but I _really_ wanted to do something with you today. Sort of selfish of me, really. But we're having fun now, right? So some good came of it."

Now Tim had the chance to nod, amiably agree, and leave it all at that. Unfortunately, there was a great deal that still didn't match up. Daisy had been pretty specific in her accusations about him ignoring her – the things she had said didn't fit together with her claims of just really wanting to have a day out with him. He scratched at his goatee, thinking how much easier this would be if Daisy would just _tell_ him why going out had so important.

"Remember the back room at the club?" he asked her, changing his approach.

"The club? Oh, yes – with the couch and everything? I do remember that, yeah," Daisy said, reminiscing.

"We were talking about how sometimes we snap at each other, but that was okay because we were above that sort of thing."

"Really? I said that?" Daisy looked rather pleased with herself. "That's sort of deep, isn't it?"

Tim was pretty sure that it had actually been himself who had said it. Regardless, he continued, "So I guess if today is any example, that was true."

"It is, yeah, it is," she agreed. "Totally." She looked at him fondly. "See? We're _fine_ now. No need to fuss."

Tim nodded in response, at a loss for anything else to say. Maybe they really were alright.

The afternoon breeze brushed through Daisy's hair, wafting the smell of sun warmed skin and a hint of strawberries in Tim's direction. The light sparkled around the ground under the shifting tree shadows and the grass was a gentle green sea. It was really was a beautiful day out.

Tim took a deep breath of the summer air. "I guess you're-"

"Tim-" Daisy interrupted him. "-sometimes it's okay to shut up and sit in companionable silence."

"Right."

So they did.

* * *

It truly was a beautiful day outside.

The park stretched out before them, green under the midday sun as the shades of trees danced across the ground in the rustling wind. The sky was an inverted sea of bright blue, flecked with white clouds like foam in the surf. A cooling breeze rippled over the top of the lawn, stirring up loose leaves and dandelion tufts. It was a day for verdant things to grow. It was a day to take a deep breath of fresh, grass scented air, and let it shimmer down your spine to put a little more spring in your step.

Daisy happily kicked off her sandals and let her toes sift through the soft grass as she followed Colin across the expanse of the park. There were a few other park goers scattered about in the distance, though none close enough to be a bother. Feeling energized by the great outdoors, Daisy threw a stick for Colin to fetch. The dog eagerly chased it down and brought it back to be thrown again.

"Oh, you want the stick, Colin? You want the stick? Well, it's mine now!" Daisy teased the dog, and wrestled with him for possession of the stick.

Tim was hovering somewhere behind her, and for the time being Daisy was ignoring him. If he wanted to sulk, she was going to have no part in it. It was far too nice a day for that kind of attitude. And besides, Tim had gotten over his fear of Colin ages ago. He certainly couldn't use that as an excuse.

She took a brief look over her shoulder. Tim was staring towards her but without any real focus, a slight frown on his face. It looked like he was deep in thought. Well, that just wouldn't do. If Tim wanted to ruminate, then he was supposed to include her.

"Tim!" she shouted at him. His head snapped up in surprise as he was jolted from his thoughts. "Catch!" She tossed the stick at Tim, sending Colin scrabbling towards the new possessor of his quarry.

Tim caught the stick and held it in his hand for a moment with a look of faint disgust crossing his face. She thought he might have muttered something, but she couldn't hear him. He threw the stick back, Colin quickly reversing his path to follow his prize. Daisy allowed the dog to take the stick from her, and stood up as Tim approached.

"Did you want to skate?" she asked him. He had carried his board with him, after all. She didn't want him to have taken it for nothing. "Because that's okay if you do, I could play with Colin for a bit longer. There were some boys skating over that way, maybe you could join them?"

Tim shrugged indifferently. "No, I'm alright."

"You sure?" Daisy had a hard time believing that. Tim was _always_ riding that deathtrap of his around. "It's totally okay if you want to go, I mean it."

"I'm _fine_," Tim bit out.

"Alright… I was just asking," Daisy said mildly. She backed away from him. Apparently he was still put out.

Tim seemed to calm himself and asked in a more reasonable tone, "So, where did you want to go tonight?"

"Well, at first I had sort of wanted to go pub hopping," Daisy mused, crouching down to pet a panting Colin when he ran back over to her, "but then I thought a quieter night would be good, you know, we could have a pint and some crisps, kick back and relax for awhile." Her earlier conclusions regarding the evening hadn't changed. A wild night wouldn't be conducive to anything other than getting drunk. What she wanted was _bonding_.

"If that's what you want," Tim said.

Daisy raised her eyebrows in amusement. How often did she hear something like that from Tim? "Are you feeling alright? Shouldn't you be trying to make me flip a coin?"

"No! This was your idea, remember, I didn't even want to go out…" Tim said a little sullenly.

"Well we're having fun now, aren't we?" Daisy stood and playfully hit him on the shoulder. Chums could do things like that, hit each other on the shoulder. "It's such a nice day out we shouldn't have stayed inside anyway. Isn't that right, Colin? Isn't it? It's such a nice day out today…" Daisy said in her cutesy dog voice, putting her face down close to Colin's. He loved it when she did that. Despite her best efforts, she had never been able to get Tim to talk to Colin in that tone.

"I just thought you were all set for a big night of excitement, that's all." Tim shrugged.

"Excitement isn't the only emotion, Tim," she said, throwing his earlier words back at him without the slightest trace of irony. "And I mean, fun is fun, right? I should be inspired either way."

"Alright, sounds good to me."

"Good!" Daisy said emphatically. He was certainly going out of his way to make her plans go more smoothly. "Do you want to go sit in the shade? There's a bench right there." Tim stared off into space, unresponsive. Daisy frowned at him. What was wrong with him today? "Tim?"

"Huh?" Tim snapped out of his stupor, looking up at Daisy.

"Do you want to go sit in the shade?" she asked him. "I just asked you that."

"Sorry, I sort of spaced out." He looked over her shoulder towards the bench. "Yeah, alright."

A cool breeze washed over her when she seated herself beneath the tree. Colin sat in the grass, still gnawing on his captured stick. A quiet sense of contentment stole over Daisy as she watched him. This was how things were meant to be – Tim, Colin, and herself, all together on a beautiful day in the park. Equilibrium.

She turned to Tim, wondering if he felt the same way. "Do you feel like things are different, now?"

Tim looked like he had been caught off guard. "How so?"

"I don't know," Daisy said vaguely. "They just are." The sun was bright in the blue sky, and she squinted as she traced out the cloud shapes against the empyrean. "You know what I mean?"

"Well when you're that specific, how could I not," Tim said sarcastically.

He could so uncooperative sometimes. Sometimes? _Most_ of the time, she mentally amended. "Oh, nevermind. It was just a thought I had."

To Daisy's surprise, he pursued her question. "No, how do you think things are different?" he asked.

"They just _are_…" Daisy shook her head, leaning down to pluck a few blades of grass and then twirling them in her fingers as she pondered. His question cut to the heart of the matter. "It's like we've started over, almost. Everything's gone back to the way it was. It's like there's a reset button, somewhere, that got pressed and now we're fine again, me and you." No more for sale sign on the front lawn. No more _Sophie_…

"I guess."

And what, exactly, did he mean by that? "You guess? You don't think we're alright?"

"Well you were yelling at me earlier."

Oh for fuck's sake, was he still stuck on _that_? That was ancient history! "I was frustrated with my _writing_," Daisy said dismissively. To assure him she added, "This was a good idea you had, going out. I feel much better now."

She really did. She loved the flat with all her heart, but it could be claustrophobic at times. Tim had been spot on with his idea to leave the house and see the day in all its summer glory.

"Good, I'm glad," he said blandly. "It just seemed to me like you were mad about more than the writing."

Daisy felt a burst of surprise. Was Tim actually showing signs of _understanding_? Impossible… and yet, he had made a statement very close to the mark. He was spending his free time with her of his own free will, and that was a major step towards making everything right again. All he had to do was keep it up. "I admit I was a bit narky," she said.

"Yeah, I just wasn't sure why. Me and Mike stay in and play games all the time and it's never a problem," he said, stating the obvious.

"I know, I know, but I _really_ wanted to do something with you today. Sort of selfish of me, really. But we're having fun now, right? So some good came of it," she pointed out. Apparently Tim had to rediscover that hanging out with her was fun. Daisy felt a faint resurgence of bitterness. How could Sophie have erased so much in so short a time? God, what a _bitch_.

"Remember the back room at the club?" Tim asked her, introducing a rapid change of subject that left Daisy searching her memory.

"The club? Oh, yes – with the couch and everything? I do remember that, yeah," Daisy said, reminiscing. That had been a fun night, queue and all.

"We were talking about how sometimes we snap at each other, but that was okay because we were above that sort of thing."

"Really? I said that?" Daisy thought that was pretty clever. Had that been true, back then? Before all of the troubles? Before Sophie… No – she mustn't think like that. Things were already improving, and with a little time and effort they would continue to do so. She was getting her best friend back. "That's sort of deep, isn't it?"

"So I guess if today is any example, that was true."

"It is, yeah, it is," she agreed. "Totally." She looked at Tim fondly. Maybe everything was going to be alright. He was being so attentive… It was a side of him she rarely got to experience. "See? We're _fine_ now. No need to fuss."

The afternoon breeze brushed through Daisy's hair, ruffling it in all directions and tickling her ears. The light sparkled around the ground under the shifting tree shadows and the grass was a gentle green sea. It was really was a beautiful day out.

Tim took a deep breath of the summer air. "I guess you're-"

"Tim-" Daisy interrupted him. There was no need for any further affirmations. "-sometimes it's okay to shut up and sit in companionable silence."

"Right."

So they did.

* * *

It was later in the day when the shadows had grown longer, and Colin lay panting at Daisy's feet, that Tim stood from the bench and stretched.

"Think we should head back?" he asked Daisy, trying to gauge the time from the setting sun.

"Yeah, I think so," Daisy said. "We'll drop Colin off and then pick a pub."

"What, not the usual?"

"Oh, I don't know…" Daisy rubbed Colin's ears as she clipped his lead back onto his collar. "I think it might be interesting to go somewhere different."


	4. Daised and Confused

**Jump Start**

**Chapter Four:**

**Daised and Confused**

* * *

_That night I crashed out,_

_through an insincere shell,_

_you were there, I recall._

_I remember it well,_

_considering my condition_

_(watered poison and rage)._

_That countertop soapbox._

_I spilled my guts on the stage._

* * *

The pub was noisier and more crowded than Tim had anticipated. The push and jostle of the patrons annoyed him greatly as he sat at the bar, huddled over his pint. He was trying, with considerable effort, to think of something to say, and the gaggle of overloud, jersey-wearing pricks surrounding him weren't helping any.

Goddammit. He _knew_ that going out had been a mistake.

"-Don't you think?"

Shite, Daisy was talking to him. He turned to look at her, trying to judge by her facial expression what sort of answer he was expected to give. He guessed her face to hold either partial contentment or mild nostalgia. Either way, he should probably nod and smile slightly.

"Oh, absolutely," he said, nodding and smiling slightly, then cursed himself for giving too strong of a positive. He should have stuck with a simple 'yes'.

"Yeah, and it was nice to take Colin out together for once, instead of always one or the other," Daisy said. "We should go to the park again tomorrow, maybe."

Ah, she was talking about their trip to the park. He'd agree for now, it was a simple thing to do. "Sure, why not."

She beamed at him, and he felt a stab of guilt for not being completely genuine in his acquiescence.

"Bit busy tonight, aren't they?" Daisy scooted her stool closer to the counter, trying not to get knocked over. "Maybe we should have gone somewhere else."

"Nah, it's alright," Tim told her. He didn't mean it, but he was too warm and partially pissed to get up and leave.

"Mmmm," Daisy hummed as she took a drink. "That's fine, then."

He hoped so. "And so are we, right?" he said, trying to make a little joke about their conversation in the park. Well… it was _sort_ _of_ a joke.

Daisy apparently caught on. She frowned at him. "Are you still stuck on that?"

"No, no…" Tim told her unconvincingly.

"Because I told you before, I was angry about my writing, remember."

"Yeah, I remember." He remembered, but he didn't really buy it. There was something else going on, there had been all day, and try as he had for the entire course of events he'd yet to get any real answers. It didn't help that he was afraid to ask her directly. He'd found in his life that upfront honesty didn't count for as much with women as they'd like men to think it did. Forthright questions only proved that you didn't already know the answer like you were expected to.

He imagined it might be easier to suss out if he weren't such fucking rubbish at this emotional shite. Hadn't Sarah proved that much?

The dark thoughts chipped away at his self-confidence, which admittedly had never been all that strong to begin with. He swallowed the rest of his pint with a mighty gulp and motioned for the bartender. What he needed, he decided, was some liquid courage. Just enough of the hard stuff to take the edge off of said emotional shite.

Daisy's eyes widened slightly in alarm as Tim received several shots. "Isn't that a bit strong for tonight?"

"Nah, it's alright," he said as cheerfully as he could, and knocked back two shots in quick succession. "Cheers."

"Cheers," she responded, but the concern never left her face.

* * *

Much of the next hour dissolved into a shot glass.

Tim dutifully continued drinking as multiple rounds appeared in front of him, though he had no recollection of ordering them. Taste became a foreign sensation as the liquor burned his tongue clean of such distinctions. His past troubles became increasingly distant – he had something to say to Daisy tonight. A couple shots later, and he had forgotten that too.

The bright lights grew brighter, the sounds grew increasingly roaring, and motion was a dizzying swirl of color. His head pounded to the faint beat of the music. Every movement he made was through a viscous solution of melted lead, heavy and graceless. Daisy was his nexus, the focus of every attentive molecule in his sodden, piss drunk corpse of a body. She shone like the sun in the corner of his eye. He wondered, drunkenly, when she had become so vital.

She left him breathless. Daised and confused. No, that was… that was _dazed_ and confused. Easy mistake to make. Another drink would erase it. Daisy's hair was spun gold in the candle-low light. He watched, mesmerized, as her lips touched her glass.

God, he loved her so much.

If he could open his stupid, stumbling, hurtful mouth for anything but consumption, he'd tell her so.

"Tim?" Daisy waved a hand in front of his face and he realized that he had been staring at her. "You alright?"

"What? Yeah, fine…" he slurred. His tongue felt fat, a foreign object that was uncooperative. "Did you want one?" He slid his last untouched shot in her direction.

"Yeah, cheers," she said and quickly downed it, and he dimly thought that she had probably done so more to prevent him from drinking it than because she wanted any. She made a face after she swallowed. "Bloody hell, Tim. That's barely a step up from nail polish."

"But it's cheap," Tim said, pointing a very unsteady finger at her in emphasis.

She looked at him closely. "I don't think you should have any more."

"Can't afford it anyway," he mumbled.

Daisy must have been determined to salvage what she could of the night, because she began attempting to engage Tim in conversation. He vaguely recalled that the point of their pub trip had been some sort of bonding, and that there had been a fight involved, but the details slipped away into his pleasantly warm alcoholic haze. He tried to bend some of his scattered attention on Daisy, so that he could at the very least nod in all the right places.

"-so then Marsha said that she – Tim?" Daisy broke off in the middle of her monologue, looking rather alarmed. "Are you eating Twiglets?"

"No," he said through a mouthful of Twiglets.

"You're not supposed to eat those, you know. They make you violent," she said carefully.

"I know, Daisy. I don't eat Twiglets," Tim assured her as he bit off half of another one.

There was a long moment of silence in which Daisy watched while Tim continued to consume Twiglets, and he dimly wondered what she was staring at.

"Maybe we should call it a night," she said finally. "Let me pop off to the loo and then I'll be right back and we can leave."

He watched her walk away through half-lidded eyes. Alcohol, like any fuel, had to be burned off in some fashion. Tim's protesting body was leaning strongly in the direction of sleeping it off, and his head began drooping dangerously close the countertop.

"'ey, punter," the barman said, poking Tim roughly in the shoulder. "You can't sleep in 'ere."

"Wasn't," Tim said immediately, straightening up. "Another drink?"

The barman peered critically at Tim, judging his appearance. "Not tonight, punter. You've 'ad enough for you and the next three customers."

"S'alright," Tim garbled, blinking heavily. "I'm not thirsty."

"You 'ardly could be," the barman grunted, eyeing the empty shots still sitting in front of Tim. Shaking his head, he collected them and moved off to see to some other patrons.

Hadn't Daisy said something about wanting to leave? Tim tried to think through the fog of war in his head. Yes… yes, she had definitely said something about going home. He'd be a good friend, and meet her by the door. With that thought, he stood on shaky feet and awkwardly turned himself to stagger towards the exit.

"Tim? Tim Bisley?" a deep, raspy voice said to his left.

He knew that voice. Even in his drunken state a surge of mixed fear, anger and resignation surged through him. Fortunately, the alcohol amplified the anger, and Tim showed no sign of apprehension as he turned towards the sneering visage of Duane Benzie.

"Nice to see you, Tim," Duane said facetiously. "We do seem to run into each other."

"'lo," Tim muttered in aborted greeting.

"Are you pissed, Tim?" Duane had a gloating look on his face. He was clearly enjoying the inebriated state of his rival. "You know they say that it's dangerous to drink alone…"

"I'm not _alone_," Tim retorted, gritting his teeth and making a Herculean effort to pull himself together.

"Really." Duane looked around behind Tim. "Who's with you? Your mum?"

"Daisy," Tim said proudly, happy that he had, in fact, not been drinking alone.

"Daisy? Yes, I remember her… Is she well? I wouldn't mind talking to her."

The anger Tim had been feeling before swelled significantly at the things implied in Duane's smug tone. "What's that – _hic_ – supposed to mean?"

"You figure it out," Duane said in a bored sort of way. "What were you doing here with Daisy, anyway? I heard you had a new bird – Sophie, was it?"

Tim bit the inside of his cheek, unable to meet Duane's eyes.

Duane read him like a book. "Ah… Chucked you already?"

"She had a job offer," Tim countered sullenly.

"And there's no job that's worth losing over Tim Bisley," Duane chuckled cruelly. "You're not angry, are you? I'd have thought you'd be used to that by now."

Tim's temper was subsiding into a sick, burning shame as Duane taunted him. There he was, piss drunk and unable to properly defend himself, just standing there and taking it like a ruddy poof. Maybe he deserved it.

"You know Sarah hardly even remembers you anymore," Duane said offhandedly. "I hope you aren't bitter, Tim, but the better man won. Even a sorry drunk like yourself should be able to see that."

"No…" Tim said weakly. He wanted to leave. He wanted Duane to go away and leave him alone so that he could be miserable in peace.

"Still, I can't help but play the field on occasion," Duane admitted with a sly smile. "It's a certain virility I have, you know. Daisy's still your flatmate, isn't she? I'm sure you wouldn't mind giving me her number."

The rage that had gone dormant beneath Duane's mocking onslaught roared back to furious life when Daisy reentered the conversation. Tim was too intoxicated to be concerned about what that meant. He raised his gaze and met Duane's eyes squarely. "I would mind," he defiantly slurred.

Duane frowned, like Tim was a disobedient child. "Just give me her number, Tim."

"Daisy's not like that." Tim took a step closer to Duane, no longer caring that the hulking man towered over him. "And she never liked you anyway."

Duane's countenance turned ugly. "Is that so?" he spat. He leaned in close to Tim's face and said in a deadly low voice, "I think she might change her mind after we've shagged on every piece of furniture in _your__flat_."

Tim's brain exploded like a gas can in a house fire.

"_**YOU-**_"

_-Duane and Daisy in the shower at the flat, giggling as he soaped-_

"_**-SHUT-**_"

_-Daisy falling back onto the couch in her knickers as Duane lowered himself and-_

"_**-THE FUCK-**_"

_-Daisy smiling as Duane put her on Tim's bed while he was out of the flat-_

"_**-UP!!!**_"

The images seared themselves across Tim's consciousness-

-as he pulled his arm back and put every ounce of strength he possessed behind the punch he smacked right into Duane Benzie's ruddy fucking face.

The fight that followed was short and brutal. While an assortment of male strangers cheered him on, Tim managed to get in a few more hits before Duane regained his bearings and gave Tim a right hook to the mouth that split his bottom lip, followed by a haymaker that slammed into his left eye.

Tim didn't remember exactly what happened after that. He had the faint impression of being grabbed by multiple strong arms, and then there was nothing but the sensation of hurling through the air and skidding painfully across the pavement.

He lay there, motionless, while someone shouted something to him about not coming back, and then a door slammed and there was nothing but the ambience of the city and the faint sound of blood dripping from his mouth onto the concrete. He tried to push himself up onto his arms but the world spun around him and the taste of copper was overwhelming. He subsided back onto his stomach and pressed his forehead to the ground, letting the chilly sidewalk cool him.

Footsteps approached and someone stepped over him to enter the pub. "Pisshead," he heard them mutter, and felt resentful of their assumption. He wasn't lying on the sidewalk like a bum because he was drunk (though he was), he was lying on the sidewalk because Duane Benzie was a fucking prick.

"Gobshite," Tim muttered thickly through a mouthful of blood, and he wasn't sure whether he was referring to Duane or himself. He spat and stained the street red.

"Tim!" The door to the pub swung open and Daisy's voice rang out. "Oh my God!" Her hands clutched at his shoulders and she awkwardly rolled him over onto his back. He grimaced as his head fiercely protested the movement. "I saw what happened! Well, part of it. I didn't know they chucked you out, I couldn't see over the crowd."

Daisy had seen him get his arse kicked? Brilliant. That was just how he had wanted to end the evening – drunk and bleeding on a sidewalk. "Thought I'd go out on a high note," he said indistinctly, gurgling through the blood that seemed to be in endless supply.

"You think this is bad, you should see Duane," Daisy told him with a vicious gleam in her eye. "His nose is hardly even on his face anymore."

Tim took some small comfort in that. "Cheers."

She helped him sit up, cradling his brushfire of a head in her blessedly cool hands. "Tim," she said in a serious tone. "What did he say?"

Normally that would have ushered in the point at which Tim would concoct a plausible story, and so avoid revealing too much of himself. But he was in too much pain, and too damn drunk, to lie. "He was taking the mickey over Sarah and Sophie," he said blandly, "and then some shite about shagging you in our flat."

Daisy's eyes went wide. "That bloody bastard!"

"Yeah, that's what I thought too." Tim nodded like Daisy had made a mildly interesting point about the weather.

She looked him over carefully, noting his slack face and drooping eyelids. "We need to get you home."

"Daisy," he said suddenly, a pressing thought weighing on him. "Daisy, I'm sorry I fucked up our time tonight, I shouldn't have… I fought, couldn't stand him, you know, but… It was your idea to come. It's all rubbish now. My fault."

"No, Tim, no," she said, calming him. "It's Duane's fault. If he wasn't such a twat, this wouldn't have happened."

"Bloody wanker," Tim grunted.

"Yeah," Daisy agreed. She slung one of his limp arms over her shoulder and tried lifting him to his feet. "C'mon, up you go!"

"I'm up, I'm up," he assured her, despite the fact that he hadn't moved.

She sighed. "Tim, you're too big to carry."

"S'alright," he slurred, lying back down, "I'll just sleep here."

And with that, he promptly passed out.


	5. The Problem With Waking Up

**Jump Start**

**Chapter Five:**

**The Problem With Waking Up**

* * *

_Tell me the truth –_

_can I take back what I said?_

_Not in words, but in actions,_

_whose meaning you read._

_I don't know if it's a first step_

_or an ending instead._

_I think you'll have to remind me._

_I can't keep these things in my head._

* * *

The first thing that Tim noticed was actually the second sensation he registered – it was simply that the first one was somehow oddly familiar.

It was the warm and wet feeling near the collar of his shirt that his subconscious disregarded. It did, after all, remind him of something… Someone? Yes, there was a definite pang of memory. He simply had to concentrate and grasp it more firmly.

Daisy. That was it. Daisy was drooling on the front of his shirt again. Ah, well… These things happened.

But no, it was most definitely the second sensation that caught his attention. Unless he was badly mistaken, something (someone?) had died in his mouth. The taste was indescribably foul, and whatever it was that had died must have been extremely absorbent in life, because there was no more moisture within his maw than there was in freeze dried food. He needed a drink of water in a bad way.

It was that need that jarred him into wakefulness.

Tim woke up on the couch in his flat in just about the worst sleeping position that could be conceived. If prior to his wake up someone had shown him a diagram illustrating the position, he'd have said it was physically impossible. He was curled into an awkward ball with his legs kinked at painful angles over the edge of the sofa, his arms flattened beneath his side and head, and his chin tucked against his chest, where he had drooled all over himself. He realized with a sense of resignation that as soon as he moved the feeling would return to his limbs and back, bringing an acute pain. As much as he tried to avoid thinking about it, he just wasn't as young as he used to be.

That was cheering. He decided to move before he became morbid. Tensing his neglected muscles, he spasmed in a rough approximation of the act of sitting up. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work as planned. Instead of rising to a sitting position, he fell off the couch.

And that was when he rediscovered his head.

Or rather, he rediscovered what was wrong with his head. The jolt he received upon landing on the floor sent such a blinding pain shooting through his skull that he went limp where he lay and let loose a sound that was the bastard child of a shriek and a moan.

"Fucking hell," he gasped when he caught his breath. The pain made him want to breathe hard, but his stomach told him that if he did he'd surely vomit, so instead he took short, tight breaths through his nose and waited for the room to stop spinning.

Unfortunately, despite his lack of motion the room continued to sway in a worrying fashion. Deciding that any further attempts to regain horizontality were risky at best, Tim took advantage of his position and gingerly raised one hand up to touch his face. What he found was a throbbing mass of battered nerve endings. His lower lip was crusty and sticky, and he knew that it had to be badly cut. His left eye felt like it had been removed and replaced with a solid bruise, fat and heavy. The pain was immense, but he tried not to wince and aggravate it further.

It was inexplicable. Lowering his hand, he tried desperately to recall how he had come to be in such a state. Judging by the horrid taste in his mouth his memory loss was most likely due to drinking, which was good, since the alternative would be brain damage. Still, as he had so pointedly reminded himself earlier, he wasn't as young as he used to be, and he hadn't gotten himself really pissed in quite some time. There were a variety of events that had recently occurred which could have driven him to such a thing… but he fuzzily remembered that he had achieved some sort of inner peace with that. Yeah, he had been talking to Mike at breakfast and Daisy's supposed 'zen' had been brought up-

Daisy. Of _course_. Whatever had happened, it almost had to have something to do with her.

Tim just hoped it wasn't something that would crush him all over again.

He had to _think_, dammit, no matter how much it hurt. He dredged up flashes of a bar, a park, a sidewalk, and not necessarily in that order. There was a man, too. Someone he hated… How many people did he hate? People that weren't fictional characters, that is. He hated a lot of fictional people, but that didn't help him.

Then he remembered a face – the face of Duane Benzie. Now that just _couldn'_t be right. He hadn't seen Duane in months, thank fuck. As far as he could tell, the prick had vanished off the face of the earth, and Tim couldn't have cared less.

So why was the image of Duane's fist so vivid?

Oh, _fuck_. Maybe if he banged his head against the floor really hard, he'd die, and then he wouldn't have to come to terms with the fact that somehow, at some point, he had gotten into a fist fight with Duane. Whatever stupidity had led up to that point, Tim wanted no part of it. The knowledge could disappear into the festering depths of his liquor-soaked brain as far he was concerned.

Ignorance really did seem to be, in this case, bliss.

"Tim?"

"Wha…?" Tim rolled his eyes upward towards the sandaled feet that had appeared near the top of his peripheral vision. The feet were attached to a pair of smooth bare legs that somehow managed to stir a faint lust in him despite his dire condition. That fact alone was enough to clue him in to the identity of their owner.

Daisy looked down at him with an expression that said she felt sorry for him, but was also holding back laughter. It was a look he was accustomed to receiving from women, though Daisy had replaced the usual pity with a much kinder sympathy. "Are you alright?"

"No," he answered honestly.

"You look awful," she told him. She bent down and gingerly prodded his bruised eye, which elicited a groan from Tim. "It wasn't this swollen before. Come on, get up and I'll get you some ice. Up, up!"

With Daisy's hands on his shoulders Tim manage to push himself up into a sitting position and from there crawl feebly back onto the couch. Daisy retrieved the throw pillow from the nearby chair and placed it under Tim's head (making it the first time he had found any use for the cushion besides flinging it across the room). "Thanks," he said hoarsely.

"Do you remember much?" Daisy asked him as she bustled off towards the refrigerator.

Should he lie? He still wasn't sure whether he wanted to know what had happened. "I remember enough," he temporized.

"That's good. You did get knocked in the head pretty hard."

He had figured that out for himself, funnily enough. "Yeah."

"Here." Daisy carefully placed a wadded up washcloth with several pieces of ice in it over his swollen eye. Tim groaned at the pressure, but obediently took hold of it and kept it there. "Shite, that looks terrible," she said, wincing in empathy. "I probably should have taken you to the doctor."

That raised a whole new question. "How'd you get me home, anyway?"

"I had to call Mike to come carry you, no way I was lifting you on my own." Daisy knelt on her knees next to the couch and carefully refolded one corner of the washcloth. "I don't know how we staggered back in here without waking up Marsha – Mike must have hit your head on the doorframe at least twice. I'd have had him put you in your bed but I reckoned you wouldn't want to get your sheets bloody. I know how much you hate washing them."

It was really Daisy who hated washing the sheets, but Tim let it pass without comment. "Good on Mike, then."

"He was really worried about you. You don't know how bad off you looked," Daisy told him.

"I don't think I want to," Tim groaned.

"I told you about Duane, right?" Daisy asked, a malevolent gleam appearing in her eyes. "I'm pretty sure you broke his nose, maybe even in more than one place!"

She said it like she expected Tim to grin and cackle with her, but since he couldn't really remember breaking Duane's nose (and since he was beat all to shit) it didn't feel like much of a victory. "Christ, he'll come looking for me if I ruined his face."

"Oh, fuck him," Daisy said dismissively. "He doesn't even know where you live."

That was cheering thought. "That's right. He doesn't."

"And I certainly didn't tell him, the prick," Daisy said with that same rancor.

Her meaning, however, momentarily made Tim forget the pain he was in. "You talked to him?"

"Yeah, on the way out of the pub. Well…" She trailed off and smirked. "It was more like yelling, really."

Tim started to frown before his swollen eye none too gently reminded him that he couldn't. "Did he yell at you?"

Daisy smiled down at him, though he wasn't sure why since as far as he was concerned there was nothing funny about what they were discussing. "No, I yelled at him. Some of the other blokes there were helping him up from the floor and I went, 'what did you do to Tim?!'" Daisy piped out in a high-pitched imitation of shouting in a crowded place. "I don't know if he heard me, I ran out the door to find you after that."

"I seem to remember that I hadn't gone far," Tim said weakly, recalling the sensation of being flat against the pavement.

"Poor Tim," Daisy sighed, fussing with his washcloth again. "You were really out of it, weren't you."

Poor Tim? He certainly wasn't about to complain when it came to Daisy's help, but she was demonstrating a level of… of what? Consideration? Compassion?_…Tenderness?_ Whatever it was, she hadn't shown much of it before. Well, okay, that wasn't really very fair of him. She hadn't shown it so _openly_.

And while it was true that he probably looked even worse than he felt – which was reason enough to elicit sympathy – he began to harbor the thought that there was more going on than met the eye. Which meant that there was more going on than he could remember.

And that worried him.

Perhaps ignorance wasn't quite so wonderful after all. "Daisy…"

"Hmm?" she hummed in response, gently relocating some of the ice to rest more directly on his bruised eye.

"…I don't remember why Duane hit me," Tim confessed.

Daisy leaned back and looked down at him, an odd expression on her face.

"I must have been pretty pissed at the time, obviously," he added.

"Tim," Daisy said slowly, "you hit Duane first."

Tim had been prepared to hear and accept any variety of solid reasons as to why Duane might do him physical harm.

That hadn't been one of them.

"Jesus Tapdancing Christ." Tim put his hands over his face and kept them there, shunning all light and rationality.

"You were pretty drunk," Daisy explained, "and the Twiglets didn't help any. But still, you had a good reason!"

"Insanity," Tim groaned into his hands.

"No, he really did deserve it!"

Tim dropped his hands and gave Daisy a resigned look. "Let's hear it."

She hesitated. "You're sure you absolutely don't remember? … Nothing at all?

"Daisy, if I did I wouldn't be asking you." He had come close to not asking regardless, but he left that unmentioned.

"Well, you weren't very clear about it when you told me, being drunk and all…" Daisy began, though she was obviously stalling.

Tim wasn't having any of it. He was already in enough pain, a little more wouldn't make much of a difference. "Daisy. Just tell me what I said."

She sighed. "You said Duane was taunting you about Sarah and Sophie-"

Tim blinked. That was it? Of _course_ Duane would taunt him over Sarah and Sophie (though that begged the question of how Duane had found out about Sophie in the first place). Indeed, such topics were to be entirely expected. Duane would _never_ have passed up the chance to rub Tim's face in both disastrous relationships. It was practically fucking _routine_.

No… No, even taking into account the booze and the Twiglets, Tim just couldn't believe that he'd take on Duane, who was at least a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier than Tim, over nothing more than the usual bollocks. It didn't add up.

Tim tried to raise a skeptical eyebrow in Daisy's direction, but his swollen flesh prevented it, so instead he settled on a scoff that sounded more like a raspy cough than the sound of derision he had intended it to be. "You've got to be joking," he said, interrupting her. "I got my arse handed to me over that shite? I couldn't have been _that_ drunk – I don't have that kind of money. C'mon, he hit me first didn't he."

"No, Tim, you pounded him!"

"_Why_?" he demanded, becoming aggravated now. "What the bloody hell could I have even been thinking?"

"I wasn't finished!" Daisy said, raising her voice above his. "Let me finish!"

"What? What else did he say, then?"

"You said that he was talking about shagging me in our flat!" she told him triumphantly.

Tim's mouth dropped open slightly and he stared back at her, gobsmacked. His question had been answered, and all of a sudden his physical condition made a great deal of sense.

After a long moment of silence he managed to say, in a strangled sort of voice, "Yeah, I guess that would have done it."

Daisy smiled down at him with an adoring expression, the kind that he might expect to see if he had given her a bouquet of flowers. "You were very brave, Tim."

Very _pissed_, Tim mentally amended. "And now I'm very hurt."

"Oh, and your ice is all melted," she noted. She gathered up his washcloth and hurried over to the refrigerator again. "Shit, we're out of ice," she said, her voice sounding hollow as it echoed back out from the freezer. She turned back to him. "Will you be alright if I pop out to get some?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

"No, I guess not," she agreed sympathetically. "Alright then, I'll be back in a bit."

"You know where to find me," Tim said. His swollen mouth made him sound drowsy, but in fact his mind was moving a mile a minute as Daisy put on her shoes and went out the door.

In retrospect, he might have figured it all out if he'd given it some more thought. But he'd been so certain that Duane had hit him first… Well, the other possibilities were farfetched in comparison.

That son of a _bitch_. Duane was a twat in the first degree. His problems were with Tim, not Daisy, and he should have left her out of it. That he would stoop so low as to insinuate... Regardless that Daisy would never, _ever_ sleep with that prick… She hated him too, the fucking poof… Though, as Tim recalled, the reason Daisy hated Duane was because of what the man had done to Tim, which said a lot for her loyalty. That backstabbing piece of shit had _no right_ to bring her into things…

Tim was actually a little surprised that, even when wounded and well after the fact, it still made him quite angry. He took a deep breath and let his bruised fists unclench, wincing at the sensation in the inflamed knuckles. Either Duane had a head made of rock (likely), or Tim could hit harder than he thought.

A knock at the door distracted him from his furious ruminations. "Come in!" he called to whomever it was.

The heavy stomp of military grade boots across the floor immediately clued Tim in to the identity of his visitor. "Feeling better, Tim?" Mike asked his invalid friend.

"Relatively speaking." Out of the corner of his blurry vision Tim watched Mike seat himself in the chair opposite the couch. "Daisy said you brought me home last night. Thanks, mate."

"I'd never leave a wounded man behind," Mike said.

"Of course not." Tim closed his eyes again, trying to dispel the ache behind them with darkness.

"I heard you gave Duane one hell of a beating." Mike sounded just about ready to burst with pride.

"_Somebody_ did. Apparently I happened to be behind the fists at the time."

"That's my boy, Tim. You gave 'em hell!"

"And got it, too."

"No war is without casualties," Mike said seriously. "But you're alive, and that's what matters."

Tim sighed. "I appreciate that."

"I thought you might not be conscious this morning, all things considered. You didn't wake up at all when I carried you back here."

Tim winced as a particularly bad burst of pain went throbbing through his eye. "Can't imagine why."

"At least you're awake now, if not mobile. You know, Daisy was telling me why you attacked Duane…" Mike's voice changed tone from congratulatory to something else that Tim couldn't quite recognize.

Tim opened one eye and fixed it on his friend. "Oh yeah?"

"I knew it had to be something serious to make you bring the fight to the enemy, and an unwarranted attack on Daisy's character certainly demands a strong offense," Mike said, temporarily sliding into the stiff demeanor of the military, "but unless I'm mistaken it seems like you really took it to heart."

Tim tried to frown, gave up again. "What are you talking about?"

"Come on, Tim," Mike said conspiratorially. "You know."

No, he really didn't. "No, I really don't."

Mike leaned forward in his chair. "Right, sure you don't. That's why you were so quick to defend her."

"What? What are you on about?"

"You fought for Daisy."

"I was drunk!"

"Yeah, but you still did it."

Tim stared at him. "So?"

"Come _on,_ Tim," Mike said again. He leaned forward so far that Tim thought he might fall out of the chair. "We both know you _like_ Daisy."

With a little effort Tim was able to repress his immediate response of 'like, or _like_ like?'. Something about conversing with Mike took him back to primary school. It was just as well that he took a moment to reconsider, because he didn't have the patience to play word games. "Mike, whatever you're trying to say, mate, just say it."

Mike blinked, looking confused. "Well… You do love Daisy, Tim."

Tim still didn't understand. "Of course I do. She's my best mate. I could hardly hate her, could I?"

The expression of confusion on Mike's face increased. "What? No, that's obvious. I was talking about the _other_ obvious."

Since when was 'obvious' a noun? Tim put one hand over his battered eye, blocking the light from it. His head hurt too much to try and figure out what Mike blabbering about. "Mike, I honestly have no fucking idea what you're on about."

"Tim, you're _in_ love with Daisy – remember?"

The amazing thing was the way he stated it like it was the most blatantly evident fact in the world.


End file.
